After rising steadily for nearly a century, the share of older Americans who live alone has fallen since 1990, largely because women ages 65 to 84 are increasingly likely to live with their spouse or their children. The likelihood of living alone has grown since 1990 for older men and for women ages 85 and up. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

The extremist organization ISIS manipulates gender dynamics far better than its opponents often understand. It recruits young men with promises of control over women and uses mass rape as a form of cohesion. At the same time, it lures isolated women with appeals to enlarge their lives by joining a cause. Policymakers seeking to address the role of women in countering violent extremism must take an equally layered, multi-pronged approach to gender, according to experts from government, the United Nations and civil society. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

Recent trends in death rates among US women ages 15 to 54 reveal that rates among non-Hispanic whites are rising for many causes of death. These rising causes include accidental poisoning, suicide, and obesity- and smoking-related diseases. Specific changes in behavior might reduce some of these death rates, but the range of rising causes of death among white women suggests a need for a broader perspective on the social determinants of health. Unhealthy behaviors often arise and persist within certain social and economic contexts, and such behaviors resist improvement or are replaced by other unhealthy behaviors unless those contexts change. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

Women are less likely than men to answer correctly questions that measure knowledge of basic financial concepts, the authors report. Young and old women and those for whom financial knowledge is likely to be important, such as widows and singles, all have lower financial literacy than men, and these gender differences are strikingly similar across countries. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

The end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan marks the close of the first era where women rose through the military ranks into significant leadership roles. As the first female graduates of the service academies from the class of 1980 approach the 35th anniversary of their commissioning, the moment offers an opportunity to eflect upon the individual and institutional characteristics enabling the rise of women into senior leadership roles across the services.

Similarly, significant changes in legislation and social trends throughout the 1970s produced an expanding cohort of female executives within the private sector. While their experiences are clearly different from those of their military counterparts, comparing the experiences of women in these two distinct communities permits an assessment of the challenges and opportunities that women face throughout their careers that lead to or hinder their success – and, ultimately, the success of their institutions, by enabling them to draw on the full range of the nation’s talent. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

Policy proposals to end the flow of children streaming across the southern border of the United States too often focus on enforcement, including increased military presence along the border or warehouse-like detention centers in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the three nations that so many try to flee. Such proposals miss the major challenge behind many border crises, that is, minimal attention to a gender perspective on issues that contributes to lingering poverty, violence, inequality and lack of opportunities, argues Marisol Ruiz. According to Ruiz, televised Investing in education and family-planning programs to reduce birthrates could reduce poverty. The policies known as “gender mainstreaming” offer a sustainable approach to ending the massive, tragic migratory influxes that also pose humanitarian and moral crisis. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

The G20 and Gender Equality: How the G20 Can Advance Women’s Rights in Employment, Social Protection and Fiscal Policies. Oxfam International. Shawna Wakefield. July 14, 2014.

Across G20 countries and beyond, women are paid less than men, do most of the unpaid labor, are over-represented in part-time work, and are discriminated against in the household, in markets and in institutions. [Note: contains copyrighted material].